The present invention relates to the general field of slaughtering meat animals, and it relates more particularly to the operation of cutting up a carcass after it has been eviscerated.
More specifically, the invention relates to cutting up carcasses of animals such as swine, ovines, or bovines.
The operation of cutting up an animal carcass typically takes place by suspending the carcass vertically by its hind legs, and by performing the cutting up operation along the backbone by means of a cutting tool such as knives or a circular saw, using an automatic cutting-up method making it possible to achieve working throughputs compatible with the requirements of industrial slaughterhouses.
Such a method consists in causing the carcasses to advance as suspended from a transporter or conveyor past a station comprising an automatic machine including a cutting tool that can be inserted between the hind legs of the suspended carcass so as to act on a vertical cutting plane by cutting up the carcass into two half-carcasses.
Cutting-up installations are already known in which the cutting-up operation can take place on a fixed processing station, or xe2x80x9con the flyxe2x80x9d, i.e. by combining the vertical movement of the cutting member with the lateral displacement of the carcass when the transporter or conveyor advances continuously. This operation makes it possible to cut up the carcass of a meat animal into two half-carcasses that are separated so as to be directed subsequently to other processing stations.
Depending on the needs arising from the carcass processing subsequent to cutting-up, or depending on the means implemented to suspend the carcass on the transporter, it may be desirable to cut up the carcass while allowing a link to remain between the two half-carcasses. The cutting-up is then intentionally limited to most of the carcass, without however being performed over the entire carcass, so as to avoid obtaining two half-carcasses that are fully separated. Such cutting-up may be referred to as xe2x80x9cAmerican cutxe2x80x9d.
Such is the case, for example, when the carcass is suspended from the transporter by means of a support of the hanger or gambrel type that has a single hinge only for a single suspension yoke to the ends of whose arms the hind legs of the carcass are fixed. If the cutting-up is performed fully, it produces two half-carcasses which then move with an uncontrolled swinging motion that adversely affects their stability and their subsequent removal. It is thus desirable to cut up the carcass only over most of it, while leaving a remaining link, typically facing the bottom end in the vicinity of the head, or as from the middle of the back with a zone of dorsal rind that is not cut through. The bottom end is typically the end portion of the rachis if the head has been removed. In any event, the cutting-up must make it possible to cut through all of the bones in the backbone, the two half-carcasses being connected together after cutting-up via a non-bony zone: the desired link is to be obtained without any bones and at the rachis.
Industrial slaughterhouses thus need means for performing such limited automatic cutting-up, with a high working throughput, and regardless of the lengths of the carcasses arriving at the processing station.
In the prior art, the machine described in Document FR-2 535 944 is known, for example. That machine comprises two fixed assemblies, which does not make it possible to obtain a desired very high throughput of about 500 animals per hour to 600 animals per hour, such a throughput being obtained by the present invention.
That machine describes a first column including the cutting member, and, facing it, a second column including an external dorsal guide member for guiding the outside dorsal face of the carcass while it is being cut up. A mechanical link is formed between the cutting member and the external guide member during cutting-up. The vertical guide carriage is constrained to move with the dorsal guide carriage. It is not therefore possible to control those two members independently.
A dynamic machine is also known from Document U.S. Pat. No. 5,655,960, making it possible to achieve high throughputs. Unfortunately, when it reaches the bottom end portion of the carcass, the support arm for supporting the cutting member can come into abutment and damage said bottom end portion. In addition, at the end of cutting-up, the external guide wheels do not follow the outside dorsal face of the animal, and thus they no longer guide it from then until the end of cutting-up.
An object of the installation of the invention is to enable the external guide member, the cutting member, and the internal guide member to be controlled independently. In addition, an object of the installation is to guarantee that the external guide member is positioned strictly face-to-face with the cutting blade and with the internal guide member. An object of the invention is thus to achieve accurate control over both the horizontal positioning and the vertical positioning between the cutting member and the external guide member, and to do so for high throughputs of up to in the range 500 animals per hour to 600 animals per hour.
In addition, an object of the invention is to provide optimum external guiding during cutting-up, the external guide member being suitable for matching the shape of the outside face until the end of cutting-up.
In a first aspect, the invention provides an installation having a moving station for cutting up carcasses of meat animals, in particular pigs, suspended from a transporter by their hind legs, said installation comprising two columns facing each other and defining between them a space through which the animals to be cut up advance continuously, said two columns being mounted to move over a certain stroke in the direction in which the carcasses move, and in the opposite direction, an xe2x80x9cabutmentxe2x80x9d one of the columns carrying an abutment device including means for coming into abutment against the outside dorsal face of the carcass along the backbone, following the cutting-up, the xe2x80x9ccutting-upxe2x80x9d other column carrying a cutting-up device comprising firstly cutting-up means inserted via the ventral face under the tail, and mounted to move vertically, and secondly an internal guide device comprising guide means situated under the cutting-up means inserted via the ventral side of the carcass and acting against the abutment means, said installation further comprising a control and servo-control device for controlling and servo-controlling the movement of the internal guide device, of the abutment device, and of the cutting-up device, the control and servo-control device being suitable for enabling the abutment means to be moved independently from the cutting-up means.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the installation further comprises uniting means for uniting the cutting-up column and the abutment column, the cutting-up column and the abutment column forming a single unit so as to guarantee the desired face-to-face position of the external abutment means, of the cutting-up means, and the internal guide means during cutting-up.
The cutting-up column comprises a lift column mounted to be moved in translation parallel to the horizontal direction of advance of the carcasses by first drive means of the motor type, a lift carriage mounted to be moved in translation vertically relative to the moving column by means of second drive means of the motor type, and a carrier beam for carrying the cutting-up device, which beam is mounted to be moved relative to the lift carriage and to be brought from a retracted position to a cutting-up position by third drive means of the hydraulic actuator type, the first drive means, the second drive means and the third drive means being distinct and connected to a programmable logic controller of the control and servo-control device which also controls actuating of the cutting-up means.
The abutment column comprises a moving lift frame that is mounted to be moved parallel to the horizontal direction of advance by fourth drive means, a support frame for supporting the abutment device, which frame is mounted to be moved vertically relative to the lift frame by fifth drive means, the uniting means interconnecting the moving column and the lift frame via their tops or via their bottoms, the fourth and fifth drive means being distinct and connected to the programmable logic controller constituting the distributor of the control and servo-control device which also controls the actuating of the cutting member.
In another embodiment, the cutting-up column comprises a first lift frame mounted to move in vertical translation relative to a fixed structure, supporting a cutting-up frame that is mounted to move in horizontal translation relative to the first lift frame parallel to the direction of advance of the carcasses, the cutting-up frame supporting the carrier beam for carrying the cutting member, which beam is itself mounted to move transversely to the direction of advance of the carcasses. The abutment column comprises a second lift frame that is mounted to move in vertical translation, and that supports the external abutment frame mounted to move in horizontal translation relative to the second lift frame, the abutment frame supporting the guide member which is mounted to move transversely to the direction of advance of the carcasses. The uniting means for assembling the single unit formed by the cutting-up column and by the abutment column may move in a groove situated in the floor.
In an embodiment, the third drive means comprise an in/out actuator making it possible for the internal guide means to be moved relative to the cutting-up means.
The internal guide device comprises two top guide wheels and two bottom guide wheels mounted on the same support arm, and the abutment device comprises an external abutment yoke that can be retracted from a position in which it is spaced apart from the dorsal face of the carcass to a position in which it abuts against said dorsal face, the yoke carrying two top abutment wheels and two bottom abutment wheels, the abutment wheels being antagonistic to the guide wheels.
The control device includes monitoring means for monitoring the position of the cutting-up means and of the abutment means, and is suitable for controlling the drive means on the basis of speed profiles and/or position profiles that are predetermined or that are calculated for each carcass.
In an embodiment, the monitoring means comprise a detection device for detecting the bottom end portion of the carcass, the response to such detection being to cause the cutting-up means to be retracted.
In a variant embodiment, the detection device comprises an emitter element for emitting a light beam, which element is carried by an arm fixed to the carrier beam, and a receiver element fixed to the bottom portion of the support frame for supporting the internal guide member, so that the carcass to be cut up intercepts the light beam until the desired cutting-up position is reached.
In another variant embodiment, the detection device comprises two bottom wheels mounted on detection means actuated by an actuator rod, the detection means being moved to a threshold position causing the cutting-up means to be retracted.
In another variant, the detection means are constituted by a yoke carrying the top guide wheels and the bottom guide wheels, the axis of rotation of the bottom wheels and the axis of rotation of the top wheels of the guide means being movable relative to the axis of rotation of the cutting-up member.
In another variant, the detection means are constituted by a lever carrying the bottom guide wheels, the axis of rotation of the top wheels being fixed relative to the axis of the rotation of the cutting member, while the axis of rotation of the bottom wheels is movable relative to the axis of rotation of the cutting member.
In an embodiment, the axes of rotation of the wheels of the external abutment yoke are substantially parallel to the dorsal face of the carcass during cutting-up.
In another embodiment, during cutting-up, the axis of rotation of each of the wheels of the external abutment yoke points towards the dorsal face of the carcass at an angle of in the vicinity of 30xc2x0 thereto, the wheels being frustoconical, making it possible to re-center the flesh and the apophyses before the saw blade passes.
Typically, the cutting member comprises a rotary saw of diameter in the range 300 mm to 600 mm and that can be used in particular for sows and calves, or else it comprises cleaving knives.
In an embodiment, the installation further comprises a protection device for protecting the hams of the carcass, which device includes retractable protection means carried by the lift column and fixed relative to the carcass, which means serve by tilting or moving in some other manner above the hams to co-operate with at least one receiving zone of the abutment column that is fixed relative to the carcass, so as to hold the hams apart while avoiding any unwanted contact between them and the carrier beam.
In a second aspect, the invention provides a method of implementing an installation as claimed, said method comprising the following steps:
measuring the carcass, the body of the animal being whole, with or without the head, and not slit on the backbone side, and detecting the start of cutting up;
actuating the control and servo-control device;
causing the cutting-up column and the abutment column to move accordingly so as to move the cutting-up device and the abutment device in all three dimensions, the abutment means being applied against the outside dorsal face of the animal, and the cutting-up member performing the cutting-up, the carcass being moved simultaneously with the cutting-up;
detecting the end-of-cutting position;
stopping the cutting-up, removing the cut-up carcass, and returning the cutting member and the abutment member to their initial position for the following carcass.
In an implementation, the end-of-cutting detection is performed as a function of whether the internal guide device is bearing against the end portion of the carcass.
In an implementation, the cutting-up device and the external guide device are moved relative to each other along a substantially vertical axis and in a direction therealong such that the external guide means perform external guiding until the end of cutting-up.